Bulletin Today

Marvin Gaye‘s seminal album What’s Going On is released May 21, 1971. Influenced by letters his brother sent from Vietnam, Gaye writes the songs from the perspective of a Vietnam vet.

Happy birthday, Mr. President. At Madison Square Garden in New York, Marilyn Monroe serenades President John Kennedy at a fundraiser on May 19, 1962. Monroe dies less than three months later at age 36.

An estimated 5 million-plus people join Hands Across America on May 25, 1986, to raise money for the nation’s hungry and homeless. They don’t actually span the country in an unbroken chain, but they have the numbers to do it.